For almost a year, as Google prepared the Android smartphone operating system for launch, it relied on the help of dozens of HTC employees despatched to its California headquarters to work on the secretive project.

The Taiwanese company produced the prototypes that Google’s engineers used to hone Android, as well as the first commercially available phone running the system, launched in 2008.

But while Android has become so dominant that it is now the subject of a European Commission antitrust investigation — with 79 per cent of the smartphone market in the first quarter, according to Gartner — the manufacturer that brought it to market has suffered a sharply contrasting fate.

Internet hyperbole (and financial analysis) have rendered HTC, a once high-flying mobile brand, essentially valueless. In short, the company is trading below cash on hand. So if you bought all HTC stock, the company would have to pay you, the buyer, to take it over. This means the company’s factories, stock and brand are worth nothing, at least on Wall Street.

Furthermore, the researchers have discovered that the HTC One Max has been keeping fingerprint biometrics used to unlock the cellphones in an unencrypted “world-readable” file, a definite no-no in the world of security. Hackers could easily open the file /data/dbgraw.bmp on the phone’s memory and capture your fingerprint data.

It’s bad. In short, HTC is hosed.

As our own Jon Russell notes, the company isn’t sitting idly…………… continues on TechCrunch